Well, I kind of like it

careercast.com has a new ranking of 200 jobs from best to worst. The criteria were stress, work environment, physical demands, income, and outlook. The best: mathematician. The worst: lumberjack.

Historian is number 7.

Archeologist is number 51.

Author is 93.

Senior corporate executive is 88. Teacher 1s 127.

The method used here is very well described on their "methodology page." (Note to editors: "methodology" means "the study of methods", not "a description of the methods used in this study.") And it really left me wondering what kind of person dreamed up this study.

Their "physical demands" category uses a simple rule: the harder the work, the worse the score. The ideal job, in this scheme, is one that involves sitting still in a comfortable chair all day. That this is terrible for your heart seems not to have occurred to the people who designed the study.

And moving on to "stress," their rules pretty much give jobs higher scores the more useless they area. Really. If the "life of another is at risk", then you get lots of bad points. "Working in the public eye" gets you more bad points. So does facing "win or lose situations." Ditto facing deadlines, having to work fast, facing any sort of physical risk yourself. So the highest scoring jobs in this system are those in which you never really have to do anything.

Which explains why "Physician, general practice," is 142, one below janitor. Really. Registered nurse is 143.

After looking over their criteria a few times, I decided that the real rule is: the more exciting a job, the worse. So these listings are for people who want the most boring possible high-paying job.

Yeah, I know, I'm a historian.